Design Support for Reliable Integrated Circuits

Integrated circuits (ICs) are the basis for almost all microelectronic applications independent of their particular target market segments. Therefore, to make microelectronic systems reliable, ICs should be reliable analogously. This chapter presents methods and approaches to take IC reliability into account in design projects. In particular, it discusses possibilities to consider reliability information for selecting the most suitable semiconductor technology and devices to apply in a particular product. Furthermore, it introduces how transistor degradation due to hot carrier injection (HCI) and bias temperature instability (BTI) can be investigated and handled in transistor-level circuit design.